ThoughtFarmer Reviews

Pros

ThoughtFarmer's ease of use, and the easy deployment on-premises (although a cloud option is available) helped us implement our new Intranet on time and budget while providing users with a top-notch experience for corporate news, events and navigating different processes in our organization.

Social features (likes, commenting, @ mentions) really empower our employees to have a voice be more engaged with our strategic direction, operational insights and celebrating milestones with the recent addition of Shout-outs.

From an extensibility perspective, the platform allows for page templates and widget creation (in browser or with modern development IDEs) and it is now based on React, so page loading and navigation is fast and responsive. Customizing with your own fonts. corporate color theme and images is quick and painless. Need to go a bit further? You can add your own CSS or JavaScript to fill in any gaps from the out of the box theming engine.

A recent overhaul of the search experience brings the experience to what you would expect from enterprise search with the addition of best bets, predictive search, etc.

The people directory is beautifully crafted and thanks to the Employee Directory Connector you can bring your users and their active directory properties (such as department, job title, phone, email) in just a few clicks. For authentication, SAML SSO is an option.

The admin area is intuitive and very powerful as many options are configurable in the UI.

Cons

There are only 2 security roles, admin and user, so roles like help desk or others might get exposed to settings one might not want them to have.

From an integration point of view, would like to see more integration with Office 365 as we use it for more day-to-day collaboration. A SharePoint integration is possible, but not sure if it will also work with SharePoint Online.

Pros

I love the simplicity, user experience and features offered in ThoughtFarmer, as well as the ability to administrate without needing a deep IT background.

Cons

The calendar integrations are one-way, and can only come from ThoughtFarmer. We use other programs and it would be helpful if ThoughtFarmer could receive RSS calendar feeds, not just create them.

Pros

It works solidly and reliably. Very hard to break! I’m sure I’ve spent a thousand hours in this tool as an admin and power user. And the results look great in desktop or mobile.

Cons

Lack of integration with automation services like Zapier or IFTTT. It would be nice to have more ways to publish content to the intranet without manually logging on.

Pros

You can set up a corporate Intranet quite easily with this product. There are a lot of out-of-the-box cool templates, features and functionalities. Integration with Active Directory is also a very nice feature, the security of the sections of our Intranet isa based on AD Security Groups. Support is quite excellent also!

Cons

Document collaboration and and co-authoring is not really possible. Working with files is still difficult in ThoughtFarmer. You can upload Word documents , and edit it using a small app that runs on your computer. Unfortunately, sometimes the files get lock, and changes get lost. As a workaround, we've started linking files on Office 365 to collaborate instead of having the files directly on the Intranet.

Pros

The customer support team for ThoughtFarmer is exceptional! From upgrading to the newest version of the software to working out any issues I had with their features, I can ALWAYS count on the ThoughtFarmer support team to guide me through the process and resolve any issues.

Cons

My company recently upgraded to one of the more recent versions of the software. While I love all the new features that it offers, many features are still being developed or are in the pipeline for the future. Their new FormFlow feature has a lot of potential but still has a lot of limitations given that it's a newer feature.

Pros

This is a great intranet software; by far better than what we had! We have a lot of options to set-up information to share company wide. It has been very effective in helping streamline procedures and helping keep everyone connected.

Cons

I wish the home page news carousel could be prioritized in an order other than when it is published. We have to go republish items we want to remain up there to bump off other new items that may have expired. For example, we had a company wide "wear red day" for heart healthy month. Once that day was over to get that message to expire we had republish ones that were behind it. We are also working through an issue with getting email notifications sent when a form is submitted. Support has been excellent!

Pros

The software is super easy to use from an administration perspective. Not only is it easy for us in the IT Department, we've been able to train most of the management staff on how to run their own pages and make changes.

Initial setup took some tweaking to make it our own but Thoughtfarmer support was very helpful whenever we had issues or needed suggestions. The modules themselves on the back-end are very customize-able and we've rarely needed anything besides the tools laid out for us by the software.

Cons

One of the only cons for our organization is that Thoughtfarmer had lacked any good form integration but it seems they improved this with the latest software release.

Pros

The easy-to-use platform makes it simple for anyone in our organization to post content. The message boards and alignment with individuals' roles has made it much easier for us to communicate with targeted groups and virtually eliminated the mess of mass emails we used to live with.

Cons

The lack of integrated form-building/workflows in the system is limiting, but we've found ways to work around this in most cases. The platform does allow you to embed Wufoo forms, but it's not as elegant or efficient as truly integrated forms that could be linked to the user's identity.

Pros

The software is easy to use and added a lot of features to our internal portal that did not exist before. I like the interface and that I can find information easily and quickly.

Cons

Some advanced features require programming to enable the features or use them as needed. There is also not enough security built into the application framework itself.

Pros

Navigation ease; notifications feature; ability to save links internally and external to intranet; main page banner to highlight important announcements

Cons

We require staff to follow certain pages (i.e., manuals/guides) to ensure they receive notification of changes; however, setting up new staff to follow the many pages is very time consuming -- need a feature that allows an administrator to select from a listing of pages. Would also be helpful if selecting a page to follow also prompts user to choose to also follow all pre-existing and new sub-pages.

Pros

ThoughtFarmer is so much more than just software. The team was there from Day One to help us maximize our platform and build the Internet that met our expectations without breaking a sweat or breaking the bank. Putting together a company wide Intranet from scratch was a daunting initiative but with their expertise and support it was one of the easiest implementations I've ever done and the end product is something the whole team enjoys and uses daily. In a nut shell, ThoughtFarmer is super easy to use, fulfills all our requirements for what an Intranet should be and looks great.

Cons

Having a news post appear in both the feed and in the top carousel is bit redundant .

Pros

After a bit of a learning curve, it's very easy to use as an administrator. Once you understand the concept of adding pages/forums/groups etc, everything is based on that concept. The search functionality is excellent and used extensively by our staff. Being able to give people access to different areas/content or message everyone/individual groups makes it a very useful tool for a multi-office company.

Cons

If there is anything I would suggest it would be to have more integration with MS Office documents. Being able to edit documents directly in the software would be great. But on the whole it's an extremely useful software!

Pros

Using this software is like riding a bike - takes a little practice using all the different features, but once you've done it a bit, it's a piece of cake!! I don't have to go back to notes to remember how I made something work a certain way - it's all very logical and easy to do time and time again.

Cons

I guess what I liked least about the software is that it uses rich text editor which is a bit different from Word, so it took a little bit to get used to. But that's stretching trying to find something negative to say... lol

Pros

The software is overall straight forward to use. The Thoughtfarmer community page is a great way to learn tips and tricks on various software capabilities that we didn't realize were there.

Cons

Challenges with employees connecting to the intranet when off of our Network - but this also may not be a Thoughtfarmer problem! This has made it a bit challenging for our jobsite employees (who never come into the office) to get used to using the Intranet and integrating it in their daily lives. But everyone in the office has had a great experience with it.

Pros

Easy to use. It takes a few moments to get used to the card system. The administrative tools are great (especially with the new version 9)

Cons

If some0one leaves the company, we need to transfer the user's ownership to someone else. We don't always have the replacement right away. There is no way to know once the pages are transfered who it belonged to. There could maybe have a sort of history log as to who had the pages so that we could group them then transfer them to another person (maybe if someone changes departments and transfers them to another)

Pros

ThoughtFarmer turned our intranet from an outdated repository of information to a dynamic site for employees. The kudos feature is great, and the news feed is really good. Very easy to use - all kinds of people (with varying tech savviness) have been posting news items. I like that we can target the audience, e.g. post specifically to leaders.

Cons

Adding header images doesn't quite do what's expected in terms of resizing images. I don't love that almost everything you do ends up in the activity feed, i.e. people creating pages and adding events to group calendars. Not all relevant to the whole organization and it makes some of the more pertinent information harder to see.

Pros

Our organization has used ThoughtFarmer for 5 years and we have found it to be an invaluable communication tool that is quick to learn and intuitive. Collaboration has been made easy using this social intranet, regardless of the location of staff or their schedules. Technical support is delivered quickly and reliably through both their helpdesk and the helpful community site.

Cons

ThoughtFarmer's workflow elements could be more robust, but each software update adds more and more workflow pieces.

Pros

I feel like I do not need to be a developer or programmer to click around the back end with ease. The front end is also extremely easy to use for our staff, many of whom are older or less comfortable with using the internet as a whole.

Cons

I don't have much to say about what I don't like; I suppose our organization has had some very custom needs lately and it has taken some time to figure those out and get them set up, but ThoughtFarmer has done their very best to work with us and get them implemented, and it is shaping up.

Pros

It's easy of use. Our staff was not very tech savvy when we started and easily adjusted to this product. Their home page is well thought out and customizable giving you the news you want at your fingertip.

Cons

Nothing comes to mind about this software. Customer support is only challenging since we are hosting the software on premise so needs our IT staff on hand to get issues resolved.

Pros

The ease of use and how easily certain aspects can be customized are probably my favorite parts. But, it seems worth mentioning that the implementation process was also pretty enjoyable and informative. I feel like we learned a lot and were able to really launch something that our employees would engage. And they did.

Cons

There isn't a particular part of ThoughtFarmer that we don't enjoy. The only issue I have is... I wish it had a learning management system integrated. But, that's more of a just a wish/request.

Pros

Most of TF is intuitive and is easy to use. I like that it uses a Word type format which makes implementing text easy. It's easy to use word files or pdfs or input photos and create links. The pages load quickly and easily and it's very easy to organize your pages, add new ones, or move other ones. One of the best features is that once a document or link is created, it will always be there, even if you move pages - the links won't break - making editing a breeze because all you have to do is edit the root document! The customer service is great and they are always willing to hear your suggestions and attempt to implement them!

Cons

There are a few things missing - the ability to add photos and move them around freely without left or right justification. I'd like things to be scheduled (totally possible) but with a take down or delete date. I'd also like to have a "view as" option so that I can see what I am posting and how it will look without saving and editing and looking and then saving/editing/looking over and over.

Pros

This is a great looking intranet, very easy to navigate and use. The search is very strong, quick, and in-depth.
From an administrative stand point it is very easy to manage as it runs on IIS and uses modern systems (ex. Amazon Corretto). Active Directory integration is nice.
The support team is fantastic to deal with; quick to respond and supplies plenty of information.

Cons

Could use a larger Knowledge Base. That's all I can think of!

Pros

Customizable, user-friendly interface. Predictive search function is excellent. The staff at ThoughtFarmer provided excellent training for our team to get our intranet up and running and made it easy for us to transition from our old system to the new one.

Cons

We are happy with the software overall. There are a few areas where we'd like to be able to sort/alphabetize tables but these are fairly minor details.

Pros

It is extremely easy to use and intuitive for users and administrators for all the basic functionality. It was very fast to put in place. It has great analytics to look at engagement and use

Cons

Would like to be able to build security groups more easily in the software directly, but I understand this functionality is in development.

Pros

The product is easy to use, there's very little reliance on IT, customer service is great, usually get a response within a few hours

Cons

n/a, software has been continuously enhanced over the past 5 years, new features added to make the product more engaging, the company listens to its customers, and tries to add requests to the roadmap